The insiders are cashing out. The leaders are walking away. They see something coming that the public has not felt yet.
Insiders are still dumping their holdings.
The biggest transactions in the past few weeks are sell-only.
This isn't a good sign. pic.twitter.com/2GHWk1HfVV
— Ted (@TedPillows) November 8, 2025
A slump in stock buybacks could be in the rearview mirror. What that means for stocks is more complicated.
S&P 500 buybacks in the second quarter fell 20% from record highs in the first quarter, but they are expected tick up in the current one. With economic policy uncertainty starting to dissipate and interest rates headed lower, repurchase activity from companies in the broad market index is expected to return to record levels, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.
Wall Street analysts, however, say buybacks may not be as helpful to EPS growth as they once were.
Headline buyback figures are big, but their growth has stalled lately even for the biggest companies in the index. Companies like Apple (AAPL), Meta Platforms (META), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Nvidia (NVDA), which usually account for about 30% of annual buyback spending, posted no meaningful year-over-year growth in the second quarter, according to a recent Goldman Sachs report.
Is It Time to Eye the ‘Buyback Aristocrats’?
A lack of buyback activity has resulted in a lower buyback yield—which measures total buybacks over a given period divided by market cap at the start of that period—for the the S&P 500 over the past 12 months. The figure recently touched 2%, the lowest level in 20 years, excluding recessions. (That is, however, partly due to big spending on artificial intelligence that has contributed to a decline in share repurchases.)
https://www.investopedia.com/stock-buybacks-have-slowed-here-s-why-it-matters-that-they-could-bounce-back-11812904